Debit Card Dilemmas!

February 23, 2009

As promised, here goes:

I have this gold colored debit card that lives in my purse, well at least most of the time. However, I have discovered that it likes to hide! Some days I find the thing in the bottom of the purse, or hidden between the papers that always just get stuffed in it. Sometimes it likes to hide in plain sight right in the slot where I usually put it. You would think it wouldn't be too hard to find this gold card in my hot pink wallet and my black purse lining. Let me tell you, that thing can find more ways to create havoc when I am ready to pay than all five children when they were home! Never have I had an inadamant object ever give me so much trouble. First, it seems like it doesn't like it's magnetic strip when it is used and scratched. Now, even if I put the thing in a ziplock bag after each use, it would still get scratched! Those little machines at the stores scratch the thing when you slide it through. Some days I have to huff my breathe on the magnetic strip, and then carefully wipe it off on my t-shirt in order to get the blasted thing to work in the machine. Now I use this card to pay for most everything because I am basically lazy and never write checks anymore unless I have too...it's too much work when you can just take a receipt home and write it in the checkbook instead of writing the check and also writing it in the ledger. A debit card eliminates one step in my opinion. HOWEVER, when the dumb card is being obstinate, keeps popping out of the machine, refuses to let it's magnetic strip get read, I have just about declared a boycott!! The thing isn't very old, in fact it was brand new this past summer. I even signed the back in permanent marker, so I wouldn't have to continually put it through the pain of having to be signed and signed again! I thought that was the kind thing to do. BUT, that thing refuses to be available when my hands are full at the checkout stand. I just need it to cooperate and be in the right slot when I need the thing. It claims that it likes to take vacations in my purse since it doesn't get to get out the purse except to pay. It claims that the inside of those machines which suck it in to read it's magnetic strip are scary places! Give me a BREAK! How scary can a few little lights reading your backside really be? It claims that those machines are so intimidating that it has to hide between my tissues to recover it's dignity. So why do I find it messing around in my address book? And just what is it doing in the checkbook? And why does it like to visit the bills from the doctor's office? What could possibly be so much fun about visiting those? I think if it was a smart debit card, it would snuggle up to the perfume sample....at least that smells good. I think it should stay away from the coins, they tend to scratch it's face! And who ever heard of a debit card and a credit card getting together....it seems to me that they would never want to see each other because of the usage competition!! It has decided that it doesn't like to pay at the dentist's office, so it just refuses to work in their machine....I can't say as I really blame it. I don't like that place either. But, it's not like the card has teeth that have to be repaired or polished. It just has numbers on it's face, and the bank logo. Granted those numbers tend to get the color worn off them, but you can still see their little faces because they are raised up when the card it stamped! So they are naked, they are just numbers!! The other day, I found the card sunggled up to my library card. I think that's pretty desperate. If you are that lonely, go hang out at the mall. At least you can people watch. It also likes to slide in the slot with the insurance card. I think it just likes to be handy when paying at the hospital for tests and surgery! Sadly, we don't go there very often, poor card! Lately, the card's favorite place is the pharmacy! I guess we have been there too much the last six months. It has a real thing for that scanning machine....it's like love in it's numbers! They seems to always have to run the thing twice to get it right, and I think the card malfunctions on purpose the first time because it has a crush on the scanning machine! My card definitely has it's favorite places...the post office because for two years the same lady handled it so tenderly when I mailed Caleb's mission letters each week. The grocery store because it likes to buy treats for school lunches. It likes to go to Lowes with Cymbre because she buys pretty flowers for the flowerbed. Who knew a debit card likes flowers? Who cares? It likes the container store, although, it says that scanning machine tickles...how can that be? How do you tickle and inadamant object? One of these days I will figure out why some days when I get ready to use the card, it has this really mischievous look about it. I think it may be when it's been snuggled up next to Dad's card! Sometimes I think that's why I can't find it in my purse! At any rate, the thing better get used to the dark recesses of my purse because it has to live there for the next couple of years! By then it will be a bedraggled looking thing ready for retirement! And I will happily replace it with the brand new shiny one the bank sends me!!

Love you.

Mom